Lial - City Elf Mage

Character portrait of a city elf Mage form the Dragon Age universe.

Playing hundreds of hours' worth of Dragon Age made me want to draw one of my mage characters, so I did. Lial is an obnoxiously rebellious young city elf, and I always pictured him as somewhat of a punk in a fairly medieval-ish kind of way. The game's aesthetic allows for a pretty wide array of clothing options, so I had a lot of fun marrying modern clothing bits and pieces with old-timey fantasy ones.

Vector drawing in Adobe Illustrator.

Face detail. Giving him a super obvious mohawk made him look too modern, so I decided that he usually wears it down.

I kind of pictured him as Johnny Rotten with a hint of Anders, so I gave myself the challenge of working in as many nods to plaid, spikes, bondage pants, and other such things without straying too far from the usual Dragon Age aesthetic of asymmetrical shrugs and feathered pauldrons.

Boot detail. Lial draws a lot of "mage freedom" stuff on his clothes.

Waist detail. Lial draws rude things on his hands and arms when he's bored. Most of the Templars guarding his Circle tower absolutely hate him.

Staff detail. I love the comically oversized staves in this game. The Magister's staff is my favorite.

Just like everything else on my site, this is all hand drawn - no filtered photos, no live paint or live trace funny business. Just a lot of little marks made with my Apple Pencil in Adobe Draw and my Wacom Cintiq in Adobe Illustrator. Powered by Adobe Portfolio